


Caught Glove

by quentinknockout



Series: Suits and Shipyards [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentinknockout/pseuds/quentinknockout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months in, Stannis hasn't said the big words, but Davos's accident puts things in perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught Glove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/gifts).



> Slightly rewritten for those who followed the anons on Tumblr and requested the work be put on ao3. Thanks guys, hope you enjoy. :)

Stannis, without fail, always worked through lunch. He never felt the need to waste an hour chewing through a sandwich when there was paperwork piling up. His brother Robert was a different matter, he was of the belief that the boozy lunches were part of the perks of working in head management. But Stannis rarely drank, and longed for the quiet. It was his favourite time of day. It started the minute Mel stood up from her desk out the front and tapped on the glass to indicate she’d be out for the hour. An hour of blissful peace.  
They often gave Stannis a bit of spare work, even though he was in management, mostly the harder claims to assess. This was what he did through lunch, because these sorts of claims took no time at all. He was tough and fair and never caught up in emotional pleas. Flood damage? Very unfortunate. But did they have flood insurance? No? And living in that part of the country? Foolhardy at best. He’d redstamp forms while eating his sandwich at his desk.  
Stannis had overheard his brother the week before. ‘Productivity absolutely through the roof, but still with a stick up his arse. I thought since the divorce came through he might lighten up. Hasn’t happened.’  
Mel had been much more diplomatic. ‘He just needs to get out there. No need to be cruel. He’s got a good heart.’  
Neither of them knew that Stannis had, in fact, ‘got out there’. And he’d even lightened up, mostly behind closed doors, and thanks to someone else.  
Robert had been too drunk to remember meeting Davos. Davos, who’d smiled at Stannis from across the karaoke bar and drawn a chair up beside him. Davos, who’d been so upfront with his kindness, broad and fit and strong jawed, jamming his hands into tight grey jeans. Stannis could summon Davos’s smile in his mind in an instant, the tiniest dark gap between the two yellowed front teeth.  
They’d been seeing each other for about six months now, and a very casual, domestic ease had crept in. Stannis had left a toothbrush in Davos’s bathroom mug, and Davos had left a shirt hanging in Stannis’s closet. Stannis was worried, very worried, that he might like Davos more than he’d ever liked anyone in his life. He didn’t want to say the words yet, even in his own head, but his chest did a funny thing whenever Davos grinned, even when he jokingly called him ‘darlin’, and especially whenever he turned over in bed, sleep fogged, to kiss Stannis wherever he could reach, usually on the forehead.  
Even just thinking of Davos while poring over dull insurance claims gave Stannis a warm feeling. He glanced at the clock. Davos might even be at lunch now too, down by the yard, having a break from unloading the ships coming into dock.  
He had just pulled out his phone to text Davos when the phone buzzed to life. It was an unknown number. Taken aback, Stannis answered it.  
‘Hello?’  
‘Is that Stannis?’ An unfamiliar voice was at the other end.  
‘Speaking.’  
‘It’s… it’s Sal here. Sal Saan. We’ve… we’ve actually met before. I’m a friend of Davos’s.’  
‘Oh,’ Stannis sat up in his chair a little straighter. ‘Is everything all right?’  
‘Well, er…no. Look, I’m just down at the hospital on Bay Street. Davos is here. There’s been an accident at work… Quite bad…’  
Stannis’s heart seemed to freeze. ‘Is he all right?’ He whispered.  
‘He asked me to call you. He’s okay, he’s just… really hurt himself. He doesn’t want you to bother with-’  
‘I’m on my way. Tell him.’  
In the cab, Stannis’s chest felt very tight, as if someone was pressing on his sternum with an iron bar. He wished he’d got more information from Sal before hanging up, because now he was imagining horror. Crushed limbs, grotesque scars marring a beautiful face, blindness. Stannis wasn’t usually one to catastrophize but this was different. This was very different.  
He flung twenty pounds at the cab driver and didn’t wait for change. At the front desk he stammered Davos’s name and was pointed down an endless corridor. He tried to compose himself desperately before opening the door.  
Three faces turned to look at him. Sal, a doctor in a white coat, and beyond them, Davos.  
‘Hiya, darlin,’ He offered from the bed. He looked sickly pale and dazed, a giant bandage wrapping his left hand, but otherwise intact. ‘You didn’t have to come.’  
‘Oh my god,’ Stannis could barely contain his relief at seeing his boyfriend upright and talking. ‘What happened?’  
‘Fecked up at work.’  
‘We were just saying, Mr Seaworth has been very lucky here,’ the doctor began. ‘His hand was caught in some machinery. Unfortunately, he’s lost the tops of his four fingers there, up to the knuckle. We weren’t able to save them. But it could have been much worse. I’ve seen men lose whole arms in similar accidents, or killed.’  
‘Doc’s been marvellous, absolutely marvellous,’ Davos said, and there was an air of intoxication about him. Stannis blinked rapidly, trying to slow his heart rate and catch his breath.  
‘He’s on some heavy painkillers,’ the doctor continued, filling in even though Stannis hadn’t asked. ‘I’ll give you both a minute. If you have any questions, let me know.’  
‘I’ll be outside,’ Sal clapped a hand on Davos’s shoulder and did the same to Stannis as he passed.  
They were left there. Stannis stood, dumbstruck, in the middle of the room. He felt faint himself. Lost fingers? He couldn’t believe it. His boyfriend had been mutilated for life, and he’d told Stannis not to worry about coming to the hospital.  
‘Jaysus, you’re scaring me.’ Davos said. ‘Say something. Or better yet, come over here.’  
‘God.’ Stannis finally stepped over and perched on the bed, taking Davos in his arms gently, smelling the old cigarettes on his breath. ‘How did you do it?’  
‘Glove caught on a snag in the chain. Tugged me in. Luckily they shut it off before the whole arm went. Don’t worry. It’s not my good hand.’ As if to prove this, Davos leaned back and brushed back Stannis’s hair with his intact fingertips. ‘Would you please stop looking like that?’  
‘Davos, it’s very serious. Your hand!’  
‘Well, honestly. It’ll give me a chance to step back from the manual labour side of things. I can do some overseeing. Be a foreman, maybe. It’ll be definitely less hands on.’ Davos started to chuckle. ‘Get it, less hands on!’  
Stannis bit his lip.  
‘Come on, that was funny.’  
‘I was so worried. I didn’t know… Sal didn’t tell me, I thought you could’ve been dying or-‘  
Davos kissed him, quiet and quick.  
‘You’re not rid of me that easily,’ he murmured, smiling. ‘I’m sorry for giving you such a start. You must’ve been scared, you got here in about ten minutes flat.’  
‘I just…’ Stannis’s breathing had slowed. ‘I was…I think…’  
He didn’t finish his sentence. They both felt what they still hadn’t said. The words would come easier for Davos than they would Stannis, but Davos certainly didn’t push.  
‘You can go back to work, if you like,’ he said, quietly. ‘I need a rest. I think I might have to stay in overnight.’   
‘No.’ Stannis had barely been there ten minutes. ‘I’m staying. I’ll have the rest of the day off.’  
‘But I’ll just be sleeping.’  
‘So then I’ll be here if you wake up.’  
They looked at each other. Davos reached out his hand, and Stannis took it in his, warmly.  
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, and his eyes were full of gratefulness, and something else that Stannis recognised, and yet they still didn’t say it.  
Stannis left the hospital many hours later, when the corridors had plunged into darkness and Davos’s painkillers had dragged him down to a heavy sleep. He’d kissed him and left, glanced once more at that big hand swaddled with bandages, and thought about how it would be a lot harder than Davos had suggested. Stannis could not believe the ease and warmth and reassurance his boyfriend had given, even though he’d been the maimed one. How easily his lovely smile came, despite the pain. Stannis owed him so much, and six hours by a hospital bed and some takeaway ramen wouldn’t be enough to do it.  
He stood in the rain and tried to hail a cab. He would say those big words to Davos, as soon as he was brave enough.


End file.
